So you can pick any whole number value of x -- 2, 3, 10, whatever -- and substitute on the right side. You will get a value of y which is the fractional part of the mixed number that makes the "strange" square root work.

On a historical note: This is comic #1066. If you thought I'd do something about The Battle of Hastings ... well, it had crossed my mind, but too complicated and no way to plan in advance with the crazy schedule I'm keeping.

Wednesday, November 18, 2015

The second verse would've had a line like ''if you look you can find me by the symmet-tree!'' in the Big Quadratic Mountain.

This is an old song that dates back to the 1800s. However, the first version I'd encountered was a sanitized version that was turned into a children's tune for one of a series of kiddie videos about 20 years ago. (The videos were a little older than that.)

The next encounter I had was finding out that Burl Ives had recorded a version of the song. But for all his friendly Rudolph cheer, his was the traditional rendition, not one aimed at the kids.

Wednesday, November 11, 2015

I admit: I was tapped out this year. I've thanked people and made puns, and there wasn't else I could say, except "Thank You"
again. I have no problems with the Thank You's, but it doesn't make for a good comic, especially when I haven't updated in a week (because of work and other concerns).

Earlier this morning, while I was sweeping a mess of leaves outside, this came to me. I realize that I've seen an Internet "joke" with something similar on a test paper, but I still put my own little twist on it. For one thing, I got to bring out the (Grand)father and (Great)Uncle characters. For another, I added a little diversity to the mix of character -- something I've been reluctant to do because I was afraid it would turn out badly.

My last regret about doing this last minute: I don't have the numbers and the diversity I would like in this pic. But any more people and they would have been blurs in the background. After 1000 comics, my skill is improving, but I have a long way to go. And I still have my day job.

Monday, November 02, 2015

Halloween comics are over, and with work keeping my busy, I managed -- not for the first time -- forget our anniversary, which was a week ago on October 24.

(x, why?) is EIGHT YEARS OLD, and already into it's Ninth Year. It that time, I've produced over 1,000 comics, many bad puns, many worse puns, and many song parodies. I've created characters with no names and made them into pieces of me.

And I've managed to be seen around the world (according to my stats), and I've had comics reposted by Math Councils and translated into foreign languages for universities.

Wednesday, October 21, 2015

Really, why do you need to kill his grandfather when you only have to kill the mood with some annoying, badly-timed phone calls and interruptions. Smaller chance of going to prison, and it leaves out the whole murder thing -- although whether or not knowingly preventing a known conception from occurring is akin to the murder of a future individual should be left to the philosophers.

As for the movie trilogy timeline, time travel is one of those devices which can be handled in a thousand different ways. As long as a story is internally consistent. The argument ensues from the fact that many viewers don't think Back to the Future is actually consistent. The Rules are what the Rules Need To Be at whatever point the script calls for them to be that.

Last two notes: since my early days on social media, I have been seeing Photoshops of the DeLorean's dashboard clock saying "today is the day Marty McFly landed in the future" -- and in every instance, it has been wrong. Oddly, I haven't seen it posted recently.

Secondly, as of tomorrow, Back to the Future is a time travel movie that takes place totally in the Past. This is actually a cool sub-genre of movies, watching a past time portrayed as future events extrapolated from some either further point in time. Cheesy results, sometimes, but cool.

Sunday, October 04, 2015

The "dihydrogen monoxide" was supposed to be the alt text, but I figured I'd add it for that little extra.
It was almost just "dihydrogen oxide" because I wasn't sure what would fit in the word ballon.

I also could've jettisoned that pun altogether and went for Gold Oxide, Au2O3, which would've added Au to the mix, but then I would have had to have started with ozone, O3, instead.

Tuesday, September 29, 2015

Yes, I have an old telescope, which rarely gets used, and I was set up trying to align it with the Moon and NOT move it when I tried to put the tablet camera up against the lens. And, of course, I had to wait for the large clouds to move out of the way, by which point, I had to reposition the telescope.

Actually, I had to physically move it. Between trees and neighboring buildings, I had to shift it in the driveway. By the time the Moon was red, I would have had to have put the telescope in one specific spot at the other side of the house. However, by that point, I'd already put it back in the basement, so no Blood Moon pics. Seriously, I had enough just getting what you saw, and I got those by accident. By mistake, I took video. Those are three still images from the video I shot.

About Me

Mr. Burke is a high school math teacher in New York as well as a part-time writer, and a fan of science-fiction/fantasy books and films.
He started making his own math webcomic totally by accident as a way of amusing his students and trying to make them think just a little bit more.
Unless otherwise stated, all math cartoons and other images on this webpage are the creation and property of Mr. Chris Burke and cannot be reused without permission.
Thank you.